A former British soldier, Robert James Purkiss, is facing extradition to Kenya related to the 2012 murder of a 21-year-old woman named Agnes Wanjiru. The National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested Purkiss in Tidworth, Wiltshire, on November 6, following a warrant issued in September. He appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, where he expressed his intention to contest the extradition and was remanded into custody, with a subsequent court appearance scheduled for November 14. Purkiss’s legal representatives affirmed that he “vehemently denies” the murder.
Agnes Wanjiru’s body was located in a septic tank near a hotel in Nanyuki, approximately 124 miles north of Nairobi, three months after she went missing on March 31, 2012. At the time of her disappearance, she was the mother of a five-month-old baby. Reports indicated that she had been at a bar with friends on the night of her death, where British soldiers were also in attendance.
Wanjiru’s family has long sought justice, expressing relief at Purkiss’s arrest. Esther Njoki, Wanjiru’s niece, met with the UK’s defense minister last month to advocate for the extradition. Legal representatives for the family emphasized the significance of this development in their pursuit of justice.
In 2018, following pressure from Wanjiru’s family and local rights organizations, an inquest into her death began. In 2019, it concluded that Wanjiru had been unlawfully killed, with evidence of stab wounds. A 2021 investigation reported that a British soldier allegedly confessed to colleagues about the killing, after which he left the army and remained in the UK. The British army announced in 2024 that it would conduct an internal review of soldiers’ conduct in Kenya, which identified numerous suspected cases of exploitation and abuse involving local women, sparking further discussion regarding the military’s practices in the region.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8jrkyzn8dvo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss